It’s the last Friday of the school term. Here are some of the things that caught our attention.
This Week in Greater Auckland
Only one post this week sorry. A guest post from George Weeks reviewing Jarrett Walker’s updated Human Transit book.
School Holiday Rail Disruption
The school holidays are here and as with other school holidays this year, it means more rail disruption.
Significant upgrades across the Auckland rail network will take place over the Saturday 20 September to Sunday 5 October school holidays as the region gets closer to the more frequent trains and faster journeys the City Rail Link (CRL) will bring when it opens in 2026.
No trains will run south of Puhinui Station on the Southern Line to enable KiwiRail teams to complete three major south Auckland sections as part of the Rail Network Rebuild (RNR) programme. There will also be reduced rail services on the Western Line as Henderson Station upgrades continue.
This work has been planned during the two-week school holiday period when public transport demand is lower because there are fewer commuters and students aren’t travelling to schools.
During these partial closures Auckland Transport (AT) will operate rail replacement buses, including a Southern Line express service, and on the Western Line between Swanson and Henderson to supplement less frequent trains. Passengers are encouraged to check the AT Mobile app or visit the AT website to plan their travel at.govt.nz/journeyplanner
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Western Line partial closures
In west Auckland, trains will use one track between Swanson and Henderson from 20 to 27 September and between 29 September to 3 October during the forthcoming school holiday partial closure. No trains will run on the Western Line on 20-21 September or 28 September, and no trains will run between New Lynn and Swanson on 4-5 October.
KiwiRail uses ‘single line running’ to safely work on one set of tracks while trains continue to run on the second set – so some freight and passenger services can operate. Single line running will also be in place from the extended Labour Weekend (24-27 October) full closure until the Summer Rail Upgrade.
With only one platform available at Henderson, the frequency of service west of New Lynn will be reduced to 20 minutes all day. Britomart to New Lynn will still have a 10-minute peak frequency service.
Pedestrian Level Crossing Removal
Last month the government celebrated the start of removing level crossings in South Auckland (and Glen Innes) and as noted at the time, while the focus was on road crossings, it’s the pedestrian crossings at stations that Auckland Transport are starting on first.
Now they’ve released the final designs for those bridges which they consulted on back in May.
Main construction works begin in October, with the majority of the works being carried out during the summer rail upgrades closure and other already planned rail closures to reduce disruption to rail passengers.
The station bridges are part of a project to replace rail level crossings in Glen Innes and Takanini with eight new road and pedestrian bridges.
Auckland Transport Head of Level Crossings Tom Willetts says AT has used feedback from local boards, councillors, the community and mana whenua to shape the design of the new bridges.
“People told us they support the new bridges and the things most important to them are reliable access to the station, safety and security, car parking and protection,” Mr Willetts says.
As a result, AT has made several improvements to the designs, including:
- Adding weather protection by way of canopies and anti-climb/throw/jump screening at all sites
- Reducing the number of carparks to be removed at Takaanini Station (13 down from originally proposed 19).
- Mahi toi design at Glen Innes Station.
AT will also upgrade the Glen Innes pedestrian underpass to improve safety and maintenance.
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Additional suggestions from the community that aren’t part of the station bridges work are continuing to be explored. This includes enhancements to drop-off zones, secure bike storage, and additional AT HOP card readers.
To future-proof the bridges, AT is working closely with KiwiRail to accommodate potential rail network upgrades, including the possibility of a third and fourth track in the future.
It’s great that these bridges are now getting weather protection. There is more details for each one, including the results of the consultation at the links below.
Third Main Complete
Yesterday the government celebrated the completion of the Third Main between Wiri and Westfield.
The new Third Main Line in Auckland will be a game changer for rail freight and will enable more frequent passenger trains, Rail Minister Winston Peters and Transport Minister Chris Bishop say.
The Third Main was opened by the Ministers at an event in South Auckland this morning, followed by a passenger train trip down the 6.5km line from Wiri to Middlemore Station.
“We funded this $328 million project in 2020, adding a third track in the busiest part of Auckland’s rail network to ensure a busier passenger network does not derail our economy by blocking rail freight,” Mr Peters says.
“Auckland is our largest city and congested roads are no good for locals, tradies or anybody else, and it is also New Zealand’s largest domestic market where efficient freight connections here enables benefits from Northland to Southland.
“Rail moves 17 per cent of the freight task to and from Auckland with 4 million tonnes hauled last financial year equating to 2.7 tonnes for every Aucklander, and our efforts to optimise KiwiRail’s freight business means there is real opportunity to grow volumes and get more trucks off our roads.
The actual cost of operating the CRL
One final rail story, there has been a lot of misinformation spread about the cost of operating the City Rail Link with the Mayor as one of the chief spreaders of it. The Post has delved into the details with some good numbers from AT.
Speaking to a business crowd in Hobsonville, Auckland mayor Wayne Brown claimed the City Rail Link was expected to cost $400 million a year to run.
“Over $1 million a day,” he said.
This eye-watering cost would be split between Auckland Council and the Government – $200m a year each.
But Auckland Transport has contested this figure after inquiries by The Post.
Auckland Transport group manager of rail services, Mark Lambert, said the CRL is actually expected to cost the council about $26m to operate in its first year because, like most public transport around the world, fares wouldn’t cover the cost.
Lambert then said the estimated cost to run Auckland’s entire (this was written in bold in his statement) metro network next year was $269m.
There’s more detail in the article on the operational costs. So where does the $400 million come from, the mayor is lumping in the council’s share of the construction cost and depreciation. Including those doesn’t happen with any other project.
Consistent support of Inter-Regional rail in council elections
The Future is Rail reports there’s “overwhelming support” for both existing and proposed inter-regional passenger rail, based on its survey of candidates in the current local body elections. See full survey results and more details here.
The survey, conducted by rail advocacy group ‘The Future Is Rail,’ received responses from over 300 candidates standing for 20 different Councils.
Key Findings:
- 83% of candidates support the provision of passenger rail services in their areas, with less than 4% opposing them.
- Support was consistent for both existing services (like the Capital Connection and Te Huia) and proposed new ones (including The Southerner, a new Tauranga-Auckland service, and a Napier-Wellington service).
- Many Mayoral candidates also expressed strong backing for passenger rail.
Additional Survey Insights:
- Overnight Wellington-Auckland Service: 74% of respondents from the Wellington, Waikato, and Auckland regions supported a possible overnight passenger service, with only 6% opposing it.
- South Island Commuter Rail: In the South Island, 87% of candidates from the Dunedin and Christchurch areas supported the introduction of commuter rail services, with only 3% opposition.
How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads
A great, in-depth article with lots of charts from Our World In Data on how Britain built some of the world’s safest roads. Their road deaths are now just 2 per 100,000 people. New Zealand is about three times higher.
It includes this in a section looking at the impact on children.
The most dramatic decline has been the reduction in the number of pedestrians killed on Britain’s roads. Since 1990, pedestrian deaths have fallen by 75% from around 1,600 to 400 per year.
Speed limits have played an incredibly important role, not just for pedestrians on urban roads but for all road users. As the World Bank’s report puts it:
“[…] there are no other risk factors that have such a substantial and pervasive impact on safety as speed. Speed has an impact on both the likelihood of a crash occurring, and severity of the outcome when crashes do occur.”
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In the late 1990s, the UK introduced 20-mile-per-hour zones around schools. These expanded throughout the 2000s and are now common across the country. Across the board, the enforcement of speed limits has become much tighter. These interventions can be very effective.19 If a pedestrian is hit by a vehicle at or below 20 miles per hour, they have a good chance of surviving. Above this, their chances fall dramatically. A study across 40 cities in Europe found that a 20-mph speed limit reduced the rate of fatalities by 37%.20 In some areas, including cities in the UK, it was as much as 70%.21
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As a consequence, the drop in child deaths on the UK’s roads has been dramatic. You can see this in the chart below. In 1980, over 600 children were killed. By 2021, this had fallen to less than 50.
Westgate Defeat
Prior to amalgamation, the former Waitakere City Council and the developer of Westgate and Northwest envisioned a more people friendly town centre but the change in council saw many of those plans abandoned resulting in a more car-soaked outcome. Now the courts have (again) ruled that was okay.
A West Auckland developer has lost his long-winded legal battle over a traffic problem with Auckland Council.
Mark Gunton’s Westgate Town Centre, Westgate Properties and NZRPG Management attempted to sue the council and Auckland Transport for $87 million.
They claimed the council had failed to provide key pieces of infrastructure so the “old” Westgate and the “new” town centre would function as one.
When that didn’t happen, the developer said the multibillion-dollar major commercial hub became disjointed which deterred customers, and rents and values suffered. It blames much of the congestion on those decisions.
Video Corner
A few videos that caught our attention.
How Seattle has built its floating light rail bridge:
The history of the escalator
Some of the crazy roads in New York:
From Social Media
#BusNews: Since Auckland Transport introduced a new bus network in West Auckland in November 2023, there has been a 35% increase in the number of people alighting on Karangahape Rd.
— NZ Transit Buzz (@nztransitbuzz.bsky.social) 2025-09-17T22:19:44.214Z
Can’t park there, mate.
https://bsky.app/profile/crunchyfishtaco.bsky.social/post/3lyrei5nsdk2d
Have a great weekend.
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I was driving that bridge in Seattle last week! My mother in law who always complains about roadworks here remarked that she’s never seen so much roadworks happening in Seattle, I told her be thankful its a sign your area is progressing.
With the 3rd main now open, why is there no plan to add more platforms to Puhinui?
Surely that’s a no brainer for flexibility purposes? Won’t the express trains from Puke not stop there?
Ditto for Papatoetoe and Otahuhu. It obviously costs more but being able to run any train on any track would be quite valuable.
Why Papatoetoe? And Otahuhu already has three platforms? Puhinui is the one urgently needing the third main platform, the stub exists.
At the moment suburban trains can only use two of the three tracks, effectively meaning signallers have to put freight trains on the western most track even if they are say travelling from the port to the Wiri inland terminal, resulting in extra crossovers.
Having all three tracks available to use for any type of train is a lot more efficient.
With the Third Main open – why not a Fourth?
Will surely be needed to cope with increasing freight (and would be useful if we get our act together with inter-regional rail).
Not needed for a while. There was an argument for going straight to a 4th main to reduce disruption, however given that didn’t happen it’s not worth the disruption and cost of demolishing bridges.
A third main to Papakura or even Pukekohe would be the most valuable for inter-regional trains.
NoR’s didnt go out as government funding fell through. This killed route protection and the Active Mode Corridor (walking, cycling) in the railway corridor from Drury to Pukekohe.
Lots of planning down the gurgler for the usual reasons.
When I think of my time living in England, one of the things about the road network that stuck out was the comprehensive system of ancient country lanes that criss-cross the counties.
Poorly sealed, full of blind corners (mainly due to flanking hedgerows and undulations) and maniac drivers.
Amazing to think that this doesn’t appear to lead to accidents and road fatalities.
Assuming that this is indeed the case, one can only speculate as to the reasons why (perhaps fewer wankers in utes).
Perhaps other road users take a raincheck on the wankpanzer-infested lanes and instead use the extensive footpaths and bridleways.
Those neglected gems might just be a muddy track over a field, with a rotting stile or a rusty gate at each end, but they make a vital car-free network for an effective cost approaching zero.
I understand that the CRL will be a major milestone in a process of continual improvement that has being going on ever since the ADK’s and the ADL’s were first brought from Perth. I doubt whether we will ever get any sort of consensus over the cost of building or operating the CRL because where would you start. However, if we could try to put this to one side and look at it as a discrete project what level of patronage would allow us to say the project is a success and what level would allow us to say it’s a flop. Put your reckons in now or if you know a standard that could be used to measure it then speak up.
Word is that there are reduced Western Line and Newmarket-Waitematā services on 18-19 October for CRL timetable testing?
There’ll be an additional 6-8 services on across the network for CRL peak-timetable testing. Unsure about reduced western services, will touch base with a colleague. Timetabling hasn’t been finalised yet, will be once we test the practical performance of the network. I work for KR 🙂
My understanding is it is testing that the CRL can handle the full expected peak schedule i.e. running 16 trains per hour per direction through it.
AT also want to do a full network timetable test once all of the Kiwirail work is completed early next year to ensure the timetable lines up with what was promised. It’s not till after that will we start to get an indication on when the CRL will open.
I also understand that once that is completed and signed off there’s about a 6-week lag to change staff rosters and they’re not going to do that during March Madness
I am back from the UK for a wedding in mid April so they better sort it by then….
The airlines like to run flights to Brisbane Sydney and Melbourne which depart Auckland around seven am. In the past I have walked to Puhinui Station and caught the first airport link bus at 4.35 am
What I was thinking is if we could have rail replacement buses that would would pickup from all stations and arrive at Puhinui Station in time for this bus. We would only need three. One from Pukekohe one from Britomart via the Eastern line and one from Swanson via Newmarket.
Drat. Every time I want to use the train as a non-commuter it seems to be out of service. I was finally going to give Te Huia a try this hols to visit the inlaws in the Waikato. Plan was to bike to Strand, and then on disembarking, ride to their place. I was rather looking forward to it. Glad I checked the timetable first.
Surely Te Huia would also be a great school holidays trip for families coming from the Waikato to Auckland to do school holiday things like visit MOTAT, Rainbows End, Kelly Tarlton’s etc? All these closures are a great way to entrench that car dependence in another generation!
Plastic bags were offered as toilets to passengers stranded on the train in Wellington this morning. Good grief!
It doesn’t reflect well on the leadership, intellect or human decency at Transdev that it took them so long to arrange a shunt to the nearest platform.
Once you board a train they regard you as freight.
Just as well they were plastic Johns and not replaced by paper
Cool re third main; was wondering exactly how far that was up to.
Interesting news from the UK Times reporting recent studies concluding that London’s low traffic neighbourhoods do very little to deter car use.
Most concerning of all is the evidence that Sadiq Khan and TFL officials have actively worked to suppress such studies.
Advocates for public and ‘active-mode’ transport solutions must take care to avoid the temptation to put the cart before the horse.
Solutions to NZ’s transportation problems must always be grounded in reality and not quasi-theological dogma.
ok then provide sources and these so-called “grounded” solutions of yours please. cause otherwise it just looks like you’re blanket opposing any attempt to reduce car usage and improve the environment, people’s health, and reconnect society,
“Solutions to NZ’s transportation problems must always be grounded in reality and not quasi-theological dogma.”
And yet, we have the Roads of National Significance.
The point of LTNs is not to deter car use overall, it is to deter fast rat-running through residential streets by limiting or eliminating through-traffic.
Since a diversion of a couple of kilometers is no big deal in a car, car modal share should be unaffected. Drivers gonna drive.
On the other hand, a granular car-lite network of LTNs would definitely encourage walking and cycling for short trips, especially by kids and seniors who might otherwise fear Death by RangeRover.
I also imagine SK and TFL recognize that media and public can’t find their thinking hats and nuance gloves with both hands, a map and a guide dog right now.
Lots of articles in the press today citing an Infometrics report that states Transmission Gully is providing $79m per annum in benefits. No articles that note that we’re paying $129m per annum to the consortium operating it under the PPP, which isn’t accounted for in the Informetrics report, so it is actually costing us $50m per annum. Doesn’t that make it a bad and wasteful project, which shouldn’t have been constructed…the opposite of how it is being presented? And no questions from any journalists reporting on it about other things on which we could be spending that ongoing $50m per annum net loss. Nor about the increased carbon emissions per vehicle using it (which is in the report), nor indeed about the carbon emissions from the construction itself. Am I wrong about this, or is it a failure of a project and a media failure to not highlight this, or ask further questions?
Why not ask Sir Brian Roche, apparently the brains behind this marvellous innovation?
Is this report publicly available by any chance? I also thought it was odd they did not mention the operating costs but could not find any numbers.
Great they’re doing single line running rather than full closures. Ideally we’d get to a point where full closures are super rare, and single line running is the norm for fixes.
And the Simeon Brown quasi-theological dogma that has determined that journey costs are related to the inverse of posted speed limits, in spite of overwhelming evidence here, and overseas that modest speed limit reductions have little effect on journey times but a massive decrease in personal death and industry costs, vehicle damage costs, and emission reductions.
That was a missed place reply to KLK
Great to see the mention of weather protection for pedestrians around stations. It’s a shame the recent Middlemore upgrade doesn’t look like the Takanini image. People naturally rush in the rain, and I have already seen some near-slips and falls. Can something be added now that the station is “finished”? Ellerslie is a great example of a station where the platforms and access across the motorway have all been covered which improves the overall public transport experience – and also makes it nicer for the community in general, with the covered walkway to the village.
What’s the third main line speed (bi directionally?) for a non stop passenger train like Te Huia or an express?
Wiri to Papakura is probably the next most useful section. No new platforms.
Then you could fully institute an inner and outer Southern pattern, once the Drury etc stations open.
Puhinui should be fully built out, all lines and platforms. It could comfortably be an inner turnback option too, on a fourth line. More needed on the Western though!
Great vid freshly out (Canadian channel). Shows NZ’s LRT cost at the top on the world comparison chart apart from the expensive as New York one. Auckland planned one ended up with so much tunnel in the design but also as per the videos first point, it’s important to have a clearly defined project scope, which we obviously didn’t have.
https://youtu.be/uttoyAX4ntc?si=bg2q0id_0hqAcmHQ